THIS is how you COPE with emotions following a narcissistic breakup

after you get to acceptance you need to focus on meaning and purpose you need to find a way to integrate this difficult story and find the meaning and purpose it can be profoundly powerful and instead of regret you may then find a strength in pushing back on narcissistic abuse that goes back to the idea I keep saying over and over on these videos that surviving narcissistic abuse is a superpower that's because it is so one thing we know about narcissistic relationships is that they bring up a lot of anger right we're in them we're angry we're frustrated we can't make sense of it like this feels really unfair then there's something else that happens called bitterness and people are like was there a difference between bitterness and anger there is when it comes to narcissistic healing and healing from these relationships that matters let's take this on let's talk about sort of this idea of bitterness versus anger now I recently did a workshop on Grief after narcissistic relationships and I regularly do workshops please go to my website and check out the schedule of workshops we have and a major part of the grief experience as we all know is anger in regular grief it can be the anger about so many things but loss does trigger anger in narcissistic grief it's something quite different it's typically a grief about lots of regret time wasted false hopes anger is an emotion it's a normal emotion and an emotion we experience in the face of Injustice a frustration of unfairness of betrayal we often judge anger as an emotion negatively especially in women but anger gets a bad brand because of how it is expressed when angry we often lash out at other people we say things that are regrettable anger is a normal emotion that can be expressed in unacceptable ways the trick is to find appropriate outlets for it be mindful even when the emotion is activated so we do not lash out at others and then we receive our anger as a sort of sign to maybe give ourselves a second anger is sort of a chronic emotional state for people who are in narcissistic relationships because these relationships are so unjust and so uncomfortable and frustrating anger in the wake of the grief of a narcissistic relationship or grief about a narcissistic relationship is also normal so then that begs the question what is bitterness bitterness is the unhealthy part of the anger that consumes us from the inside out bitterness is the rumination the obsession with revenge and vindictiveness it is as Nelson Mandela put it like drinking poison ourselves and expecting our enemy to die bitterness means you are still in it you are still wishing ill will on someone that your mind is still in it you feel like you cannot rest or relax or feel at peace until the narcissist gets punished somehow and so you sit and you stew and you wait and you almost feel sick from the waiting and you can feel even worse when the narcissistic people in your life just keep living their lives and nothing bad happens that's bitterness it's different than anger bitterness is obsessive it tends to be focused more on the unhealthy Spectrum it's not at all focused on your growth it's bitterness is often sort of more focused on the harm that you're kind of hoping to another and the faulty premise that if something bad happens to them like their next person breaks up with them that you'll feel better yeah probably you won't you might get a jolly moment of shot in Freud if their new partner breaks up with them but then you still have not processed your own grief many people confuse and conflate bitterness and anger and it's incorrect they're actually quite different anger can really very much and actually be part of a healthy process a healthy process of grief of letting go of normal emotional expression bitterness is about holding on when you are bitter you are still in the relationship because you are giving up most of your mental real estate to the bitterness bitterness is an awful part of the narcissistic relationship process especially the Letting Go part it is particularly pronounced in situations such as when the narcissist cheats on you and moves on into their shiny new future and your bitterness May mean that you focus obsessively on your narcissistic ex-partner's new life or you remain focused on the toxic behavior of a parent or you relentlessly and endlessly attempt to pursue some kind of Justice seeking against any narcissist in your life a colleague a boss a friend a parent anger is recognizing that the narcissistic experience sucked it's uncomfortable but it's about Gathering yourself and getting out bitterness is remaining stuck in the situation and plotting now narcissistic relationships are so damn confusing that it's easy to become bitter I completely empathize with the bitterness but you have wasted so much time in this relationship you have been verbally and emotionally abused you've been invalidated devalued gaslighted raged at minimized lied to and perhaps even betrayed you've already done a long sentence bitterness extends that sentence in fact my goal for this YouTube channel and all the work I do through seminars and writing and all of that is to shed some light and understanding on all of this I recognize that it is actually quite unsatisfying once you actually understand how a narcissistic mind works but you do learn in all this that it's not you it really is them we all make mistakes I've been played you've been played frankly with very rare exceptions everyone I know has been played by a narcissist even the narcissists themselves so you are in very good company in fact your company is everyone in the world so be angry be angry punch a punching bag scream at the moon break something safely I once pretty recently was very angry and something something narcissistic and I took my anger out on a Kleenex box which was an interesting choice I took this Kleenex box and I threw it against the ground over and over I was crying the whole time until there was just pieces of box and Kleenex everywhere nobody got hurt I did it outside nobody even saw it but that day I released something there was a lot of messy Kleenex around I had to clean it up but my God I felt better but know the difference do not confuse bitterness and anger bitterness can mean a lifetime lost you deserve to move forward the narcissist is the one who lost you didn't you eliminated a stressor from your life and yes I recognize that it is far more complicated as you may also be grieving family love hope and your own life history but as roomie writes where there was ruin there is hope of a treasure instead of sifting through the ruin go find that treasure in that mess listen some bitterness after a narcissistic relationship is normal but recognize that rumination about revenge is not healthy and it really does mean that the narcissist has won having your anger and letting it flow and then taking back your life with your grace and your head held high honestly if you are looking for Revenge that is the best kind a life well lived without the narcissist that's some Revenge I can get behind go out there be your authentic self and that to me people being authentic is successful and once you get that Revenge isn't something that it has to be a performance for the narcissistic person in your life revenge is you living that life and getting to that beautiful place I want all of you get to get to where your narcissist is concerned which is that place of relative indifference so there's a difference between bitterness and anger anger means you're walking away from it bitterness is sort of the equivalent of sitting in your dirty bath water you're still stuck in it rumination is when we just keep almost obsessively dwelling on something over and over and over again we can't stop thinking about it we'll be sitting there sort of staring off in the distance I can't believe you said that I wish I had said that I can't believe this happened when did that happen let me go back and think about that what day did that happen on and you're on what if I tried this what if we had done that when did things change why wasn't it like that what about the love bombing we went to Miami we had so much fun and you just can't let go of it so much so that there might be times people are looking at you and they're sort of waving their hands in front of your face and in fact it would be interesting to see have any of you found this to be your pattern that please drop us a comment here like it has rumination and Obsession after a narcissistic relationship and something that really got stuck in your head so you might be thinking hey any relationship don't you always ruminate about it well think about it have you ever had a healthy breakup let's say you were in a romantic relationship with somebody and you date six months a year maybe even longer and you guys decide this isn't working it's just you know you're going in different directions maybe one of you is moving maybe somebody's working a lot of hours but it was a really good relationship it's just that you can't give it the time and you respectfully agree to Let It Go you may have a moment where you're like I hope that wasn't a mistake but you recognize that you might have been holding each other back like you realize that maybe this move for a new job or school is important or you recognize that yeah this person's time that the way their time is cut up I was getting more and more resentful over time the healthier the relationship often the less the rumination when it ends so what is it about these narcissistic relationships that lead us to ruminate about them on and on and on after they're done well there's a few things number one they confuse us the gaslighting the the second guessing the leaving us feeling like we're not enough we're confused I have seen people who are incredibly well put together confident people get into narcissistic relationships and then when when they were in it and when they were out of it they were like a different person they no longer they were always they no longer believed in themselves they were always confused like did I really say that or maybe I'm wrong lots of anxiety lots of uncertainty because these relationships confuse us so much we're actually ruminating while we're in them the rumination's not new it's like I don't understand like what's going on I'm so confused and the person will just be saying is there something else I should be trying is there something I should be doing is there something I should be saying and that is happening in the relationship so you can be darn sure it's going to happen when the relationship is done people will report this most often in romantic relationships but they'll also often report it in family relationships too like did my mother really say that I can't be in touch with her anymore my mom really did that my mom really said that and they'll just go through it over and over and over again there are some psychologists that argue that rumination is isn't is an essential part of processing information we often ruminate things so we can let them go and that's actually a lot of what happens in therapy cynical people might call it Naval gazing I call it essential sometimes what happens is people have to sort of play it out over and over and over again in therapy and one day they're done it's like throwing up something that made you sick you kind of have to throw up for a while like yeah I'm pretty weak but this is out of me and a good therapist will receive that they'll never judge and say like can we move a little quicker you talked about this last week too that we receive it with respect and with an open heart now are your friends going to do that maybe not but rumination does serve a function the struggle with narcissistic relationships is that the rumination just goes on too long you'll find yourself continuing to ruminate about this relationship sometimes months or even years down the road and the problem with rumination is it blocks you from being able to enter into new experiences new relationships and it may even distract you from other very important things that you have to do such as work or taking care of your family or other people in your life that you want to be with and be present with another reason that narcissistic relationships do result in so much rumination is the gaslighting if a person's never experienced gaslighting before they don't know what it is and once it starts happening sadly for most of us our knee-jerk reaction is to say well maybe I did get it wrong maybe I didn't say that it's our it's our first thing many of us do we take responsibility healthy people take responsibility and narcissists are banking on that because if you take responsibility they don't have to and then they realize gaslighting can be a useful tool it's not always that active sometimes they Gaslight because it's just what they do it's not that they're they're it's not like it's well intended but it's almost an unconscious process because they're always trying to protect themselves right but all that gaslighting means that we'll often mutter to ourselves did I really say that did I really do that it links to the confusion the more gaslighting that happens in a relationship the more that we ruminate about it when it's finished especially when there are significant breaches of trust and that's sort of the third reason that these that narcissistic relationships when they're done leave us with so much rumination it's the lying and things like potentially cheating and other breaches of trust narcissists often do lie they lie because it protects them lying in tiny doses maybe we can get past they might lie about why they were late they might lie about a deadline but when they're lying about Big Ticket stuff like their job or maybe not being divorced or about having a child it can really really confuse you because by now you may really like this person and then they may drop a big ticket lie on you and you're saying oh my gosh I have feelings for this person some people might say to heck with that you lied to me I'm out of here but for a lot of people they start struggling think well I love these things and it's so hard to meet people and I don't want to be alone and well maybe they were anxious and they thought I'd reject them if they told me the truth and before you know it you're doing a little bit you're doing all the rationalizing and heavy lifting for them lying is like breadcrumbs where they're just a trail right and lying begets more lying once a person realizes it works they're going to keep doing it especially if they've gained your trust through the love momming process in addition we know that narcissists have a higher likelihood of cheating in a relationship and if not full on having sex with someone else micro cheating stuff inappropriate stuff on social media inappropriate texting feeling the need to just sort of keep everyone they've ever dated on the chain and sort of giving them a tiny little bit of promise there there's an inappropriateness that narcissists sort of stay in relationally and when your trust has been breached in that way it also can do a number on you and leave you ruminating and wondering and it can that lack loss of trust can Trail you into all of your future relationships it can take a really long time to establish trust again after it's been breached so many times rumination is also more likely in some people some people are at greater risk for rumination than other people the people at the highest risk of rumination are people who have histories of anxiety people who might have more neurotic personality Styles where they're just prone to worrying people are sort of natural Warriors are more likely to worry so they're also more likely to ruminate people who have a history of depression are often more likely to ruminate and other anxiety disorders obviously things like obsessive compulsive disorder or any sort of obsess obsessional type of thinking style those people are also more likely to be vulnerable not only to narcissists sometimes but then also to the rumination afterwards I've had many people say when does this end when do I stop thinking about this depends on the person sometimes it only lasts for a few months and sometimes it can last for years which can be really difficult because it can really pull you out of life because of all that confusion the rumination can stay in place which means it becomes critical whether through therapy weather through support groups whether through online content or reading about it to recognize what these patterns were about and it wasn't a deficit in you you did not get abused by a narcissist because there's something wrong with you you didn't know most cases people just didn't know and then oftentimes because these are intergenerational Cycles they may have had a narcissistic parent and feeling like they're not good enough or having to prove themselves in a relationship that's all you know so you do it again all of that though sets you up for a greater likelihood of wondering maybe this was me and a lot of the rumination is how did I let this happen maybe this is me maybe I'm not good enough what if they go on what if they go on to a bigger brighter better future and all of that working with someone either clinically or exploring this and understanding it can be a really really important step to recognizing that the ruminating is normal you're not going crazy and you're not losing your mind and you're not losing your marbles or all the terrible things that people think about themselves but in fact you're trying to process something that doesn't make sense and by understanding that ruminating is a normal part of this process then you're often able over time to realize that this is a normal part of the process and there's not anything wrong with me and that the confusion and the gaslighting and just understanding what a narcissistic relationship does to us can be enough to help you let it go information and knowledge are power when it comes to being able to deal with the challenges of narcissistic abuse rumination is normal for a short time but it pulls you out of your life if it lasts too long if it's lasting for a very long time more than six to nine months if you can try to seek out help or at least as much information as you can to help you recognize why a narcissistic relationship did such a number on you and how to recover I'm going to take on something that a lot of survivors do to themselves and drop in the comments if this is something you've ever done to yourself have you ever said to yourself I allowed this to happen when you're thinking about your narcissistic relationship you may look at a mess or an argument and say yeah this is my fault I I let all of this happen let's talk a little bit about that shame that people feel when they believe that the whole mess that's been created by a narcissistic relationship is something that you allowed to happen so many survivors look at the wreckage of any kind of narcissistic relationship especially if the relationship has gone on for a long time and Beyond just the head shaking the sadness the anxiety the anger the rumination the helplessness there's often another sentiment that I allowed this to happen right when survivors tell me this and many many do I do look sideways at them and say come again you allowed what to happen they will reiterate I allowed this to happen I allowed this mess to grow and hurt other people because I stayed because I tried to fix it because I believed that they would change because I chose them in the first place right that's what they believe so in essence when a person says that that I allowed this to happen they are saying that I am responsible for this mess because I actually try to make this relationship work because I gave this person a second chance because I forgave them because I believe that they could change then the Survivor goes a bridge too far and in essence by saying I allowed this to happen it's basically taking responsibility for another person's toxic Behavior which is what most survivors within narcissistic relationships do I have witnessed people do this in long-term committed relationships and marriages I have witnessed people do this with family members I have witnessed people do this in workplaces they look at the mess and they believe it's me I'm the one who allowed this to happen I do not know what magical spell that people with antagonistic personalities cast upon most of us that we are willing to look at the damage created by them and say that we allowed it to happen in essence taking on the complicity and blame for a mess that was originally generated by their dysregulation their lack of empathy their blame shifting the story of an antagonistic or a narcissistic relationship is much easier to tell backwards than forwards while people are in it and especially before they understand what narcissism is and how it works in relationships typically follow the party line try harder communicate harder forgive take responsibility hope they can change change yourself instead right one day you read something or watch something or listening listen to something and learn that wait a minute this thing I'm in this doesn't really change there isn't much you can do about it and once all the things that our narcissism is once those soak in you recognize that for years you were driving down the wrong road you didn't allow anything to happen in most cases many people in these relationships actually treat the person with this kind of personality Style as you would a person with a Kinder healthier nicer personality Style you thought they were having a bad day you didn't allow anything to happen you treated them with an expectation of goodness with compassion the same compassion you would Grant to other people when we talk to ourselves this way and say things like I allowed this to happen I'm to blame in part for this what we've done is we've internalized their gas lighting we've also internalized that that sentiment that other people have that wonder why we couldn't make it work you didn't allow anything to happen they did what they do and they did it to your detriment you were simply in the Splash Zone of their cruel Behavior it's important you don't keep falling in the I allowed this to happen kind of language because that kind of language starts to bleed into other areas of your lives do we become our own abusers we blame ourselves for the abuse we receive from others we blame ourselves from the abuse that the antagonistic people in our lives Propel unto others I know it is painful when children are involved and you feel responsible for having children with a toxic person and ending them up with a difficult parent but you didn't allow it to happen in most cases you didn't know or at least you didn't know until it was you were well into the relationship all the time wasted in high school and college on classes we will never use imagine if there was one on red flags and manipulation that should have been a required class we're just not taught any of this it's absolutely crucial for survivors to find Kinder ways to talk to yourselves it is an essential part of healing and no you didn't allow this to happen allowing something to happen implies you gave it permission at no point did you actually consent and sign up for somebody to do this much harm to you it happened and if nothing else your nervous system was so transfixed by the mess that was unfolding around you it wasn't about allowing it was about what happens when a person's behavior and this is the case with most narcissistic folks never has consequences if there is a universal experience that people who are experiencing narcissistic abuse or who are survivors of narcissistic abuse all share it is the experience of regret what are the regrets that people talk about they'll say that I regret that this relationship ever happened I regret that I spent so much time in it I regret that somehow this relationship wasn't different I saw such potential I regret at the opportunities I lost because of being in this relationship I regret what doing in this but being in this relationship did to my family I regret not getting out of this relationship sooner believe it or not there's people who regret that it ended I'll talk more about that in a moment and actually I'd love for any of you to share some of the regrets you've had in your narcissistic relationship drop them in the comments would love to hear them now regret is a sense of sadness or disappointment over something that has occurred and particularly over any kind of a lost opportunity or just lost moment you can easily see how regret and rumination are best friends regret gives rumination it's material a hefty chunk of what people ruminate about is ding regret in an intimate or close relationship is where we see regret is often the most pronounced it's most often because you are the person who chose this person in many cases people regret the day that they met this person they regret not seeing the red flags earlier and listening to them they may regret moving too fast falling for the red flags early on and falling for the hoovering down the down the pike then you may get caught in the regret Abyss you're not sure whether you're willing to leave because you have fear about regretting that you left and then you're not sure whether you should stay but then you have potential regret about the time you may waste if you stay can't win many people I have worked with over the years have indicated that they regret that they didn't honor the red flags that they saw in their first few months and they kick themselves for years or even a lifetime about that now interestingly some people regret as leaving and take the stance of perhaps the devil you know is better than the devil you know don't and it's preferable and they ruminate and wonder about whether the next person will get a better version of The Narcissist by the way there is no better version of them this is it this is as good as it gets or they'll wonder if maybe the next person will be enough for the narcissist and remember nobody and nothing is ever enough for the narcissist there may be regrets about time that you lost with children if you leave family relationships that would be ruined if you leave the narcissistic relationship and the regrets from leaving a narcissistic relationship can really be quite paralyzing for some people so you can see here how regret is such a universal part of narcissistic abuse now if you are from a narcissistic family regret is a baseline that thrums throughout your life when you come from a narcissistic family let's face it you missed out you missed out on important social emotional development that arises out of healthy mirroring unconditional love and validation you missed out on those things you missed out on stretching your wings because you felt safe enough to do so and you felt as though you were enough rather than feeling like not enough you missed out on the nudge of encouragement you needed to pursue your dreams you missed out on the support you needed just to figure stuff out that's a lot of stuff to regret and there's a risk for those from narcissistic families that they can live in this morass of regret for a very long time and then there's a greater risk of falling into a pattern on a victimhood which can hold you back but it's understandable when opportunities had to occur that those opportunities like mirroring had to occur during a certain developmental window and they didn't happen regret is an almost sensible reaction to that there's no going back and in the workplace a narcissistic boss or a narcissistic Mentor can easily derail your career your ideas make it make it stolen or ignored you may not fluff the boss enough and then get replaced by The Narcissist sycophants and minions anyone who thinks they can survive and or Thrive under a narcissistic boss is woefully wrong and many many years can be wasted in a job waiting for the narcissistic boss to either Advance you or perhaps you're waiting for the narcissistic boss to be replaced the fact is a narcissist is far more likely to outlast you in a workplace and the regret over years wasted in a job where you have no chance of being noticed working under conditions of chaos and undermining can fill you with bottomless regret so what do you do well how do you deal with this part of narcissistic abuse of regret regret is like a psychological cancer that can get in you and spread and not only fuel rumination but make you prone again to the sense of victimhood and turn you into Your Own Worst Enemy it is such a classical part of narcissistic abuse and it needs to be addressed systematically so what are some things you can do first remember above all else acceptance really matters this narcissistic abuse is a hand that was dealt to you especially in an involuntary relationship like family you didn't choose them but here's the deal and as abusive and invalidating and painful as this narcissistic relationship it was and wishing it was different or regretting it happened it burned those those patterns burn important emotional resources you need to be able to make a better fight for yourself secondly after you get through acceptance you need to focus on meaning and purpose you need to find a way to integrate this difficult story and find the meaning and purpose it can be profoundly powerful and instead of regret you may then find a strength in pushing back on narcissistic abuse that goes back to the idea I keep saying over and over on these videos that surviving narcissistic abuse is a superpower that's because it is Regret can be spun into something bigger and better once you can extract some kind of meaning from this experience third you got to recognize that some days are going to be much harder than others even if you've after you've healed from narcissistic abuse experiences ongoing experiences in your life can be quite activating and triggering and they can once again flood you with that sense of regret you can't control those experiences it's okay it will pass sometimes people feel that if they are hearing about people who had healthy family systems or whose marriages are working or careers are succeeding while theirs have been harmed by narcissistic abuse you can feel that regret come up again please be gentle with yourself it's okay to be with the negative feeling it'll pass fourth please be careful that you don't fall into a Vortex of victimhood it's so easy to do you've been through a lot if you've endured narcissistic abuse and it's very easy to go from regret to why did this happen to me then you start going to why does everything bad happen to me catch yourself before that happens a victimized identity can hold you back and you need to be your best Advocate yeah something bad did happen to you and now is the time to learn from from it and pay attention to red flags and not enable the narcissist and all of that stuff but you also need to take a minute to pay attention to any of the good stuff that's happening in your life that stuff can be an antidote to regret fifth therapy and I'm going to be saying this throughout this series but yeah you need a place to lay out all the regret and Purge it and then slowly release it therapy is that place for many people and other people may find spiritual Outlets as well as daily practices such as meditation others of you may find that therapy is not accessible for you you might find for example online support spaces Facebook groups for survivors of narcissistic abuse those may also give you communities where you can see people do share their regret narcissistic relationships waste time they waste a lot of time years decades and sadly in some cases lifetimes some people may lift their head and say you know what I'm 70 years old I gave up my life to this what am I supposed to do now and get very angry you know what 70 is late in the game I'll give you that however that narcissistic abuse has already done so much harm please don't give the rest of your time to that it is such a common pattern in narcissistic abuse and of all the patterns it's one that really makes sense pushing back on the regret in terms of survival from narcissistic abuse is a gift you can give yourself please find a way to get there and again I would love to hear from any of you some of your regrets from being in a narcissistic relationship these comments then become another tool for all of us to get support and share your experiences so all of you can see that you're not alone just drop that in the comments do it anonymously change your name on YouTube if you need to so you can share some of this but hearing some of these things really fortify my ability even to talk about these issues and certainly everyone else is going to grow from it too when a human relationship ends whether because someone dies because people it up or people make it's going to be grief is a normal human reaction to loss now some people are really surprised when this happens after a narcissistic relationship ends I think I should be the happiest person in the world I should be relieved and most people who leave relationships with narcissists and in fact when I was doing the interview for both of my interviews with both of my boys that was the prevailing theme I am so relieved I can say what I want I don't have to worry about being criticized I can actually spend time with people I want that that's how the list went on so relief was a really prevailing emotion emotion but what would confuse people is that they would also feel the traditional patterns of grief they would feel a sense of loss they would miss the person they would go through all the stages of grief like a denial and bargaining and anger and all of that and then say if I'm grieving this person maybe the relationship should be done maybe there was actually something there and they'll start almost gaslighting themselves and getting confused keep in mind that regardless of why or how a relationship ends it is normal to grieve a relationship it's what human beings do when a relationship is complicated like a relationship with a narcissist the grief can feel even more complicated you may actually miss parts of the person and in fact that's one of the toughest things about relationships with narcissists not every moment not every day is terrible in fact many people will say the reason I'm having difficulty ending the relationship or I'm having difficulty now that the relationship ended was that there were just enough good days to keep me in the game and there are think back to the love bombing days how good it was when it was good and a lot of times we know that narcissists have their own weird virtues they're really smart they're really confident they know how to have a good time those are obviously things any of us would miss anyone who's ever been in a relationship with a narcissist will say there was something really compelling about that person sometimes the thing that you miss from being in a relationship with a narcissist was it there was always something to do you were always having to do something to please them or win them over or validate them or be better or or make your hair better or lose weight or it was only something to do now that they're gone you're like Mommy I might just let myself go because I no longer depress this person so there's a lot of things that go away good and bad when a relationship with a narcissist ends on many days when you break off a narcissistic relationship your day can make a really complicated hodgepodge of both grief and relief people will report waking up saying what have I done I don't know what I'm going to do without this person but later in the day might report feeling that their light is air that they feel like they could fly that they're so relieved of this being done and that confusion of sometimes feeling relieved and sometimes feeling confused especially after years of being emotionally manipulated by a narcissist can sometimes leave people wondering maybe I did the wrong thing because remember one of the biggest saddest legacies of narcissistic abuse is self-doubt question yourself wondering did I do the right thing did I say the right thing maybe I didn't do the right thing and when you come out of a relationship with a narcissist the self-doubt sticks around for a while like an echo and because of that self-doubt if you do have a moment of grief of questioning yourself or wondering did I do the right thing it can be really really destabilizing and many people will wonder maybe I need to go back in maybe I need to maybe I didn't do the right thing maybe I was wrong but maybe they're not a narcissist and it's the beauty of narcissism it doesn't really change it's hard to tell somebody to generalize from only the relief moments and ignore the grief moment because they're both very very real one of the techniques I actually often give clients I work with and it's actually kind of low brow not very nice but I'm still going to suggest it is write down every horrible thing that happened in the relationship this is one of those things you might do in one of those Dark Night of the Soul Saturday nights here at 1am and you can't go to bed just start writing it down yep lied about this Shady text from that put me down every time they could did this at my wedding did my birthday party the list will go on once you start the floodgates are going to open and before you know it you might have a hundred things on that list things that were important to you that they devalued things that mattered to you that they criticized or mocked write it all down because when you have those moments of doubt well those moments of grief that confuse you just take a look at that list and you're like oh yeah there's a reason I'm not in this and if you're fortunate that sense of relief will flood over you lots of people will always say that one of the hardest things about a narcissistic relationship is you keep giving those second chances this is the nope this is the time this is the time he said he changed and we went to a couple of therapy and it's going better and and it's yeah it's good and we've had two good weekend right back to normal no no I told my mom and my mom and I talked about it and I wrote her this really long letter and she seems to get it and and she did it again on my daughter's birthday party I can guarantee you whatever they've done they're gonna keep doing over and over and over again scorpions sting narcissists behave badly it's just how it is so sometimes we need those reminders but after years and years and years of making those excuses after you've been away from it a while it was your only reality in some ways you think like this is all I knew and you confused that with maybe I actually really miss you I don't mean to at all minimize anyone's feelings you may very well miss them because like I said every moment with them wasn't a nightmare there were enough good moments in there that make you wonder did I do the right thing sometimes when you go back and look at the photographs of the special day and you look so happy I really want you to pay attention and do the Deep dive and wonder what were you really feeling that day because many people will say yeah I remember looking at that picture of us on vacation and we're smiling so big but an hour later we had an absolutely horrible fight and that's the nature of the narcissist even the moments the photos those those those episodes in time that looks so good are almost invariably bookended by invalidation devaluation arguments lying and manipulation grief and relief very complicated emotional our normal parts of letting go of a narcissistic relationship the fact is when we lose someone we really care about for whatever reason that might be maybe they move away and you become distant from them and ask someone maybe they die when that relationship was healthy you simply feel grief and interestingly the healthier the relationship sometimes the easier it is to let go because many times you did say everything and you said it all in a healthy way and you can simply after you grieve it realize how unfortunate you were to have been part of a healthy loving human relationship grief of the narcissist Isn't So Clean it's always wondering ruminating I should have said this I should have done that why did I get in the first place how can I let them say that I can't believe this happened and that's the big difference the other hard thing is more often than not when you leave a relationship with a narcissist they're still alive and walking around the world and the only thing more difficult than grieving the Dead is grieving the living because they're still out there and you get to watch them move on and go on to the next phase of their life and it feels so much easier for them but it's only because theirs is more superficial and you're waiting for something deeper grief and relief are the natural parts of the territory of letting go of a narcissist don't panic enjoy those moments of relief because they'll get longer as time goes on and when you're in confusing moments of grief that make you regret and wonder if you did the right thing make that list remind yourself of exactly what you didn't want in your life anymore a few looks at that and you'll be in relief if you know it thanks again for tuning in and as always as part of this community it would be great to hear what your experiences were of grief and relief as you got out of a relationship with the narcissist please drop your comments here because I'd love to hear how you experience both of those things at the same time that you'd have a lot of relief but every so often boom that grief and puncturing share that with me share that with our community so we can all learn from how we've all healed from narcissistic relationships

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 253,370

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Id: YQjlstcDOHU

Length: 46min 51sec (2811 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023